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This is a pretty poor headline. Africa is an enormous landmass. Equivalent headline: World developing its first supercomputer outside of countries which alrea

by swombat 14y ago

This is a pretty poor headline. Africa is an enormous landmass. Equivalent headline: World developing its first supercomputer outside of countries which already have one. How about instead: Kenya developing its first supercomputer, the first one in Africa outside of South Africa I think this places the focus rightly on Kenya, rather than implying that somehow this is an effort by all of Africa. Or even better: iHub developing the first supercomputer in Kenya That's probably the best one, since it places the focus correctly on iHub (which deserves it) and Kenya indirectly (which also deserves it). The fact that it's the first country outside ZA to do so can then be mentioned as a lead-in hook in the article, instead of delivering this silly title... Africa is an enormous continent that is sadly very, very, very far from being able to function as a unit.

tokenadult 14y ago
On the other hand, the submission headline here is simply the original article headline, "Africa developing its first supercomputer outside South Africa," with its subtitle (too long to be added to a headline on HN by the eighty-character rule) "The first 24-node HPC cluster should launch at iHub in Nairobi this summer." That is consistent with the Hacker News guidelines, http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html which say, "You can make up a new title if you want, but if you put gratuitous editorial spin on it, the editors may rewrite it." I generally find it is helpful for submitters on HN to submit original article titles. Then if we disagree with the original article title, as you evidently do here, we can agree to hold the person who kindly submitted the article harmless, and blame the editors of Ars Technica this time for a less than ideal title. (For what it's worth, I have observed one case where an HN submitter submitted an original article title, which was then changed by the curators when commenters howled about it. The title changed from http://independentsciencenews.org/news/23andme-disproves-its-own-business-model/ http://independentsciencenews.org/news/23andme-disproves-its... to http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2813270 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2813270 I still think it was correct for the article to be submitted here on HN with the original title that time and this time, even if the title is subject to legitimate disagreement.) I agree with your basic geographic point, hence an upvote from me for your comment.
fghh45sdfhr3 14y ago
Africa is an enormous continent that is sadly very, very, very far from being able to function as a unit. It's not like Europe is functioning that much better as unit. And almost continent sized new world countries like Brazil and the US are not something the old world should try to replicate.

by swombat 14y ago

tokenadult 14y ago

On the other hand, the submission headline here is simply the original article headline, "Africa developing its first supercomputer outside South Africa," with its subtitle (too long to be added to a headline on HN by the eighty-character rule) "The first 24-node HPC cluster should launch at iHub in Nairobi this summer." That is consistent with the Hacker News guidelines, http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html which say, "You can make up a new title if you want, but if you put gratuitous editorial spin on it, the editors may rewrite it." I generally find it is helpful for submitters on HN to submit original article titles. Then if we disagree with the original article title, as you evidently do here, we can agree to hold the person who kindly submitted the article harmless, and blame the editors of Ars Technica this time for a less than ideal title. (For what it's worth, I have observed one case where an HN submitter submitted an original article title, which was then changed by the curators when commenters howled about it. The title changed from http://independentsciencenews.org/news/23andme-disproves-its-own-business-model/ http://independentsciencenews.org/news/23andme-disproves-its... to http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2813270 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2813270 I still think it was correct for the article to be submitted here on HN with the original title that time and this time, even if the title is subject to legitimate disagreement.) I agree with your basic geographic point, hence an upvote from me for your comment.

fghh45sdfhr3 14y ago

Africa is an enormous continent that is sadly very, very, very far from being able to function as a unit. It's not like Europe is functioning that much better as unit. And almost continent sized new world countries like Brazil and the US are not something the old world should try to replicate.